Feds: Ex-Teamsters boss' extortion of Chicago film studio grows to $325,000 and began 2 years earlier

Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune

Teamsters Joint Council 25 President John Coli leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse building on July 21, 2017 after pleading not guilty to a federal indictment accusing him of extorting cash from a well-known Chicago television studio.

Teamsters Joint Council 25 President John Coli leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse building on July 21, 2017 after pleading not guilty to a federal indictment accusing him of extorting cash from a well-known Chicago television studio.

Powerful former Teamsters boss John Coli Sr. has been indicted on expanded charges alleging he extorted a well-known Chicago film studio of a combined $325,000 since 2014.

Coli, 57, a politically connected and nationally known fixture in the Teamsters, resigned his position after he was charged in July with threatening work stoppages and other labor unrest unless he was given cash payoffs of $25,000 every three months by an unnamed business.

Sources identified the business as Cinespace Chicago Film Studios on the West Side, home to hit NBC shows such as "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D."

The original charges accused Coli of accepting a total of $100,000 in payments from Cinespace since 2016. Authorities alleged the most recent payoff of $25,000 took place April 4.

The 13-count indictment, made public Friday, however, alleged the extortion scheme went back as far as 2014 and that Coli had accepted a combined $325,000 in payoffs from the company.

The superseding indictment alleges Coli failed to report that income to the U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service and seeks the forfeiture of the entire $325,000. If Coli cannot come up with the cash, the government wants to seize a Lakeview home connected to Coli, according to the charges.

Records show the four-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot home in the 1200 block of West George Street is currently on the market for $1.29 million.

The new charges up the stakes for Coli, an early backer of Mayor Rahm Emanuel who spent four decades with the Teamsters and was considered one of the union's most prominent national figures.

The Tribune reported last month that federal authorities made secret recordings at Cinespace's facilities as part of the investigation, surreptitiously capturing numerous conversations between Coli and studio President Alex Pissios, the alleged victim of the extortion.

The studios in the former Ryerson Steel factory near Western Avenue and 16th Street have been touted by politicians as a major success story for the city. Emanuel staged the launch of his re-election campaign there in 2014, and the studio has donated generously to many local and state politicians.

Recording equipment was used in the West Side facility to surreptitiously...

The studio now runs on an 80-acre site and bills itself as the largest such studio outside of Hollywood. In addition to a host of television productions, several movies, including "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," have filmed there.

A source familiar with the investigation said the feds began making the undercover recordings last year. Coli's attorney, Joseph J. Duffy, said in court last month that prosecutors had turned over evidence from the investigation that included "many discs containing electronic material," an apparent reference to the undercover recordings.

The alleged extortion occurred when Coli was president of Teamsters Joint Council 25, a labor organization that represents more than 100,000 workers in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana.

According to the federal charges, Coli used "fear of economic loss from threatened work stoppages and other labor unrest unless such cash payments were made."

The studio got off the ground with the help of state and local tax breaks, as well as a series of state grants. Those grants have not been without controversy however.

The company won $27.3 million in grants during the tenure of Gov. Pat Quinn, according to Rauner administration officials.

However, after published reports raised questions about one of the grants, officials in Rauner's Department of Commerce and Equal Opportunity sent Pissios a letter in 2015 that requested the immediate return of $10 million of that money. The state had given the studio that grant to fund the purchase of properties near its headquarters, state records show, but the Chicago Sun-Times reported that several of those properties weren't actually for sale.

The state received the grant money, with more than $2,000 in interest, the day after it was requested, Rauner administration officials said.

Another Chicago-based production studio has filed a federal lawsuit over the tax credits and alleged the state unfairly steered projects to Cinespace. Two companies, known collectively as Chicago Studio City, alleged the state economic development agency and two of its former officials did not afford them the chance to bid on top incoming productions snared by Cinespace.